


Four of a Kind

by inkpink



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Fluff, Gen, M/M, Tentacles, freud - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-10
Updated: 2016-06-10
Packaged: 2018-07-14 07:00:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7158689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkpink/pseuds/inkpink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shameless Beta Kids fluff, starring Strider man-grief and John’s inability to understand basic English. Coming soon to theaters near you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four of a Kind

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to my friend, from whose book I borrowed the opening quote and the title of what Jade is reading.

“‘Just as our soul being air, holds us together, so do breath and air encompass the whole world.’ Isn't that nice, John?”

He stretches, sunlight seeping past his skin and thrumming, mellow, in his bloodstream. Jade’s elbow knocks lightly against his own as she turns the yellowing page of The Last Sorcerers: The Path From Alchemy to the Periodic Table. They connect all the way down, like a circuit, her polka-dotted flip flops against his blue sneakers. Her toes and fingernails are painted the same shade of pale green as the grass shoots around them, mirrorlike. Indeed, the majority of Jade seems to blend in with their surroundings. Her freckles are the same tawny as the dirt beneath them, her hair as dark as the surface of the lake that this hill slopes down to. Her eyes, the violent green of chlorophyll, smile as blinding as the sun high above. It’s no wonder Jade Harley is the Witch of Space, because she looks incredibly at ease amongst the rest of creation.

“Yeah, it is nice,” John replies. His fingers card through a shock of grass. “Do you really think that our souls are air?”

Jade absently worries her lip, a tick they share. It showcases the trademark Harleybert overbite and tells John that her thoughts are running much less lazily than his own.

“Definitely not,” comes a voice from directly behind him, perfectly articulated and twisted by a smirk. John doesn't have to turn to know Rose Lalonde has come to join them. He does anyways, and the mere sight of her serene smile tugs his own into a full-blown grin.

His eyes scrunch up, partially as a result of the smile, and because she has chosen to wear a violent, daybreak shade of orange. It’s impressive that she’s found a sundress blinding enough to rival her god tier garb, but if anyone could do it, it’s Rose.

She smoothes her skirt before settling down beside Jade, pulling knitting needles and a monstrously complex-looking something or other from the bag on her shoulder.

“Souls are a metaphysical concept, not something as easily explained as O2. While poetic, that notion is archaic, rendering it scientifically unsound. A tenet of Anaximenes, was it not?”

She says all this while her fingers twist and click needles in a blur of lilac, and the balloon of love John’s been feeling for his friends, aided by a summer afternoon and the absence of obligations, swells in his chest.

“What’s a xanaxmeme?” he asks, mostly to further cement himself in the moment. It’s good to feel grounded, every once in awhile.

“Anaximenes,” Jade gently corrects. “He was an Ancient Greek philosopher.”

“Pre-Socratic,” Rose adds.

John nods like that means something to him.

“Hey, where’s Strider?”

“Dude,” says Dave from beside him, voice offended but posture so relaxed that he looks as though he’s about to melt into the ground. His arms are stretched out to form a pillow underneath his head, baring the thinnest slice of pale skin at his midsection. He’ll burn if he doesn't cover it up, but John has a hunch that he’s already aware of it. It’s a soft reminder of “I’m still fucking with you,” and honestly, he can't bring himself to mind.

“You can't expect me to hear you when you flashstep everywhere! Besides, I bet you screwed with time,” John accuses.

Dave shrugs, but the ghost of a smile haunts the left corner of his mouth. His shades are slapped squarely on his face, slipping forward a bit because of the way he’s lying.

“I can expect whatever I want,” he retorts.

“Yet, you can’t expect that to be realistic,” Rose hums. Jade turns another page, the sound almost lost in Dave’s following sigh.

“Christ, Lalonde, don't psychoanalyze the fuck out of me when it’s this nice out. If I had to roast you in retaliation, that’d make both of us at risk of sunburn. I don't know what they’re saying on eldritchgoth.com, but GameBro specifically stated that skin cancer sucks ass.”

“Gross, Dave!” Jade squeals, but she’s giggling and everything is languid and perfect.

“Funny that you mention it, but ‘eldritchgoth.com’ did indeed inform me that sunburn would detract from my efforts to beguile deities of a more Lovecraftian persuasion,” Rose confesses.

Okay, she’s definitely fucking with all of them.

“Damn, tentacles? I knew you and Kanaya were a thing but-”

“Can we maybe not?” Jade interrupts, “I don't mean to be rude, but I am really, _really_ asexual, and I don't want to hear about Dave’s octopus fantasies!”

Dave practically squawks in indignation, and Rose smiles gracefully.

“They’re not my octopus fantasies! They’re Rose’s!” Dave protests.

“Dave’s interests may be a bit unorthodox, but that is no reason to ostracize him. Everyone has their kinks, is all.”

“I don’t want to fuck an octopus!” he cries, outraged.

Man, does John love his friends.

“Where would you even get an octopus?” he ponders.

“Son, in this economy-” Dave begins, but Rose cuts him off.

“Presumably the ocean.”

John shoots her a sidelong glance.

“Thanks, Rose. Friendly reminder that I am not mentally impaired. I know that octopuses live in the ocean.”

“Octopi,” Jade corrects, again. Dave chuckles, squeaky and breathless. His laugh always manages to sound incredulous, like he can't believe that he‘s actually managed to find something funny.

“ _What?_ ” John asks, annoyance beginning to prick at his happiness.

“Egbert, you stupid shit.”

“Hey!” he exclaims, and props on one elbow to grab a handful of Dave’s collar. John can't see behind his shades, but he can see his eyebrows rise over the tops of them.

“Unhand me this instant,” Dave demands loftily, making a show of not scrabbling at John’s hand.

“No!”

“Son, I will beat your ass,” Dave warns.

“Quit calling me son!

John winds up in a reluctant headlock at Dave’s side, earning him reproachful eyes from Jade and an “I told you so” tutting from Rose.

“Now, son,” Dave begins, tone so patronizing John feels like he’s talking to Vriska. John squirms. Dave’s arms tighten. “Who’s your daddy?”

Rose makes a discreet cough, and John thinks he spies her pulling a thick black notebook from her bag. Probably labeled “Dave’s Daddy Issues: Volume 3,” if John had to wager a guess.

“Rose!” John gasps. “Help me. _Please_.”

“Don't whine for your mom, John,” Dave scolds.

Rose can restrain herself no longer.

“Dave, you know that my preferences lean entirely sapphic, not to mention that we’re siblings, albeit ectobiologically. Add that to the troubling enigma of you demanding to be called John’s dad, and well…”

Dave turns crimson.

“What- No, see it's just- I don't- _Goddammit_ , Lalonde!” he sputters.

“I understand that it’s problematic, I just can't grasp the source of it all! There are obvious answers in your lack of a legitimate father figure, but I’ve no explanation for your insistence on blurring the lines of the ectobiological correlation between us all. Incest is one thing, but proclaiming yourself not only John’s father but designating _me_ his mother, not to mention your choice of the word ‘daddy,’ opens up an entirely new minefield of issues!”

Dave releases John to bury his face in his hands.

“Honestly Dave, Freud would have had a field day with an adolescent mind as muddled as yours.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fucked up, Rose, I get it. Now can you please fuck off?”

“Not to mention,” she adds, black lips curling into the grin of a lion, “Your admittedly phallic fixation.”

Dave legitimately groans as he rolls over onto his back to nurse his pride. Jade pats him sympathetically.

“I’m not even gay, Rose.”

“Pansexuality does not negate the reality of your preoccupation.”

Man, does John _love_ his friends.


End file.
